


For the Sake of the Promise

by JeffreyAlan



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-28
Updated: 2014-11-28
Packaged: 2018-02-27 08:39:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2686358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeffreyAlan/pseuds/JeffreyAlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mike and Harvey got together at the end of Season One.  (They did.  Don't argue with me.)  In my imagination, this happened about a month later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For the Sake of the Promise

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a tweet from Jacinda Barrett (aka Mrs. Gabriel Macht)

Mike startled awake out of an unusually sound sleep just before 2:00 AM, to find the bed uncomfortably cold and empty. He reflexively reached out for Harvey, yet already knew he wasn’t there. As much as he loved being in Harvey’s bed, loved it beyond anything he’d ever known, in the short time since he’d first been invited into it, he’d already grown to _hate_ being in it alone. It hadn’t been nearly long enough, not nearly enough time had passed, for him to be able to resist that split second of panic, that gnawing possibility of abandonment that plucked mockingly at his heart. Harvey had neither said nor done a single thing, incredibly, to make him feel even the slightest bit insecure, but still. The whole room had taken on an air of loneliness, unsettled and alien and just…wrong.

He rose up sharply onto his elbows and checked for lights coming from elsewhere in the apartment, but saw nothing but the bathroom nightlight. On the hopeful assumption that Harvey was merely off in another room, he pulled on the threadbare but beloved Harvard T-shirt that he kept next to the bed and moved cautiously out to find him.

From the bedroom doorway, Mike could see him sitting comfortably in his favorite chair (won from Jessica years ago on a bet she never should have made), staring out at the lights of the city, a scotch perched precariously on the right arm rest. Harvey hadn’t heard him yet, so he stood motionless for a moment and just watched. As he did, his hand instinctively rose up and pressed lightly against his chest: this man, this astonishing, complicated, devastating man, had become such an inextricable part of his existence that just looking at him sometimes made him forget how to breathe. He finally moved, carefully, silently, out of the doorway, toward the chair, sitting on the arm opposite the drink, gently curling his right arm around Harvey’s shoulders, the shoulders that now so faithfully supplied him with the strength and security he never even knew he’d longed for so desperately.

“Hey….what are you doing up?” Harvey asked quietly, pulling Mike’s arm all the way around him, pressing a light kiss to the back of his hand before covering it with his own.

“I came to ask you the same question. I missed you in there.”

Harvey smiled, but there was no humor in it. Mike’s heart skipped an uncomfortable beat.

“Just…thinking.”

“Care to share?”

Harvey turned his face back to the window, inhaling and exhaling raggedly. It looked to Mike as if the man who had rescued him from himself, and made his life worth living, had somehow taken on the burdens of the entire universe, both known and unknown. Mike, of course, wanted nothing more than to leap in and help, to relieve whatever stresses and strains Harvey was carrying, but he felt helpless, as if navigating foreign territory without a map. A familiar uneasiness crept into his thoughts, which he tried valiantly but in vain to block out.

“I’m...just…” Harvey breathed out a long sigh. “I don’t know. It’s…it’s hard to put into words.”

Mike’s heart rate accelerated involuntarily. Harvey Specter was _never_ at a loss for words - it was usually Mike who had trouble expressing himself coherently.

“Talk to me, Harvey - _please_ ,” he said, barely above a whisper, trying gamely to keep the terror gripping his chest from rising into his voice, which would surely give him away.

Harvey turned to look up into the young man’s beautiful, shining eyes and knew that he couldn’t refuse him – which was part of the problem.

“I’m just thinking about the future. _Our_ future.”

…which did nothing for Mike’s now-furiously pounding heart…

“Why is thinking about our…future…upsetting you?

Harvey shivered out a long breath and took a sip of his scotch, his hand visibly shaking as he set the glass back down.  When he finally spoke, his voice was low, gravelly, almost broken.

“I’m in deep here, Mike - deeper than I’ve ever been, in my _life._ And I look at you and I...I can’t help but…wonder…”

Mike moved around and straddled Harvey’s legs, facing him, with his hands clasped behind his neck, the care and concern on his face as clear as the city skyline silhouetting his frame.

“Wonder _what_?”

Harvey looked away, to the floor, to the window, anywhere but into the sweet, adoring eyes of this darling man, the one he had so effortlessly fallen for, the same one who now needed, no… _deserved_ , an explanation.

“How long can we…this…. _.last_?” he dared reluctantly, in the most heartbreaking tone Mike had ever heard, from anyone.

Mike was certain he felt the entire room tremble.

“Harvey, wh…why would you _ask_ me that? Do you… _doubt_ me? How could you possibly _doubt_ me?”

“I don’t doubt you _now_ , Mike. That’s not it at all. But later on, down the road…..”

He was still having trouble holding Mike’s gaze, but knew that he had to, _had_ to. It was only fair - he owed Mike that, and so much more. Several seconds passed as he fought a raging battle to gain his composure. When he finally spoke, it was with a voice that seemed to rise up from somewhere near the bottom of his soul…

_“I’ve had what I wanted, and when all is said and done, what one wanted was always…something else.”_

Mike suddenly realized he’d been holding his breath. He blew it out slowly and evenly, then another, in and out, now a little calmer, a little steadier.

“You’re using Simone de Beauvoir on me?”

“You have to admit, it’s a keen observation, Mike.”

“For _you_ or for _me?_ ”

Harvey was silent. Thinking about this was painful enough. Talking about it was nearly unbearable.

“Look, Mike, I’ve been around the block a few times. More than a few. I know things and have seen things…I’ve been through situations that have taught me how unpredictable and uncertain everything is. I usually thrive on that, find ways to use it to my advantage. But this…this is different.”

He stopped long enough to take another sip of his scotch.

“At the risk of sounding selfish, I can see all of this ending very badly…..for _me_.”

“What are you saying, Harvey? After everything we’ve been through together, don’t you _trust_ me?”

“It’s not about trust, Mike. Of course I trust you, like no one else. You have to know that. Tell me you _know_ that.”

“I do know, Harvey. I do. But then…”

“I’m just explaining the odds to you, the chances of us beating them, with you so….”

“So… _what?_ Inexperienced?”

“Well, in a word – yes.”

Mike felt a chill run down his spine. Could it be that Harvey was expressing… _fear?_   This was an entirely new side of him, one that Mike honestly thought hadn’t existed. _He_ was the fearful one, Harvey his strength.

“You’re young…”

“I’m not _that_ young, Harvey.”

“You are when it comes to relationships, Mike. And by your own admission you haven’t had that many. I’m the first _man_ you’ve ever been really serious about. But as time goes on, you’ll meet _other_ men…other _people…_ ”

“Harvey, stop. Don’t you know? Don’t you understand? I don’t even _see_ other people. I only see _you.”_

He looked into Harvey’s eyes, desperately hoping to somehow convey the depth of his feelings, wracking his brain to find some magical combination of words that would make Harvey understand him, understand how much he meant to him, how much he would _always_ mean to him, come what may. No single moment in his life had ever carried more weight, or had more clarity: this was his time, to dig deep, to find somewhere within him the _grown goddamn man_ that Harvey had asked him to be the day they met, the one that Harvey now _needed_ him to be, right here, right now.

As if by some cosmically orchestrated intervention, the memory-power that had stepped in and saved him time and time again, the same one that was responsible for him getting his foot in Harvey’s door, not to mention a unique place in the man's heart, showed up just when he needed it most.

“So, you want Simone de Beauvoir?” he asked gently. “Fine.”

_“Two separate beings, in different circumstances, face to face in freedom and seeking justification of their existence through one another, will always live an adventure…full of risk, and promise.”_

He took Harvey’s chin in his hand and kissed him softly, brushed the hair off of his forehead, looked into his eyes.

“Live an adventure with me, Harvey. _Of course_ there’s risk, but _do this_ with me…for the sake of the promise.”

Harvey felt himself melting, powerless.

“God help me,” he whispered, his eyes tearing up without his knowledge or consent.

Mike leaned in and kissed him deeply, honestly, breathing him into his lungs in that way they both loved, as if connecting their two existences into one magnificent entity. He only pulled away to finalize his closing argument.

“Let _me_ help you. The same way you’ve helped me, over and over and over again. Who do you think has given me the desire, the strength, the _courage,_ to do this?”

Harvey stared into Mike’s beautiful, breathtaking eyes with a helpless but endearing expression that asked, “Me?”

“Yes, Harvey. You. So listen to me, OK? _Listen._ You’re all I want. You’re all I need. And more than anything else in this world, that’s what _I_ want to be, for _you_.”

Harvey could feel himself drowning in Mike’s unwavering, uncompromising sincerity, reveling in it in a way he had seldom, if ever, allowed himself. It was overwhelming in exactly the same way that his entire relationship with Mike had overwhelmed him, overpowered him, taken him by surprise, shaken him to his very foundation.

“Mike….”

He looked away, feeling his composure slipping from his grasp, again.

“Please…don’t….”

“Don’t _what_ , Harvey?  Want you this much? _Love you_ this much? Sorry, no deal. We’re in this together. You and me.  Us.  This is who we are. This is who we were _meant to be_.”

“No, that’s not…” _what I was going to say…_ but he held it back. Mike was already answering the unasked question, but Harvey chose, in the blink of an eye, to save those particular words, that particular question, for another day. This was enough, he thought, for now. This was enough.

“I just...I can’t believe how much...I never thought…”

“I know, Harvey. I _know_. So do yourself a favor, OK? Do us _both_ a favor and just think of this as…all part of our adventure.”


End file.
